Washington Musica Viva

at The Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum, 5/23/2006

Another winning concert from WMV... Opened with Bach's Cantata No. 82 - sung beautifully by Gary Poster. It was done as a chamber piece - one player per part, which created a gorgeous kind of intimacy. Soprano saxophone was substituted for oboe, which really worked nicely. Rhonda Buckley played it beautifully. Her soprano sax playing has a warm, rich tone that blended nicely with the strings - a much more luxurious sound than an oboe. I hope they made a recording - I wish I could link to an mp3 so you can hear how that worked...

Next up, Faure's La Bonne Chanson. As I've written before, I'm not such a huge fan of classical vocal music, but this piece is an exception to my rule (and now I can add Cantata no. 82 to that list as well - seems like anything Gary Poster sings winds up on my growing list of exceptions). Mezzo soprano Karyn Friedman delivered a rock solid performance - teetering on the edge of losing control, just as the poems are. I think this is the first time I've heard this set of songs done by a female voice? Well, it works just fine that way. The ensemble was excellent (string quartet and piano).

After intermission (where all of Cameron's cookies were enthusiastically devoured), we heard Ernest Bloch's Piano Quintet #1. It was given an energetic and convincing performance, but I wasn't really won over by the piece. Lots of homophonic string writing, there were very few sections where the strings really got to function independently of one another. There were a small handful of "modern" elements and effects, but overall it sounds pretty conservative to me. I think that might be my hang-up with Bloch's work overall... it's not "modern" enough to be interesting for unique sounds and textures, and not conservative enough to stand up as "neo-classical" either. The quintet certainly has its moments, but I felt like it's a bit longer than it needs to be. That being said, the performance was super. Carl Banner (piano) was joined by Sally McLain (violin), June Huang (violin), Betty Hauck (viola), and Amy Leung (cello).

Aw shucks

I missed this show on Monday night because I had a gig at the same time. Hopefully Pretty Girls Make Graves will appear in DC again soon?

National Symphony Orchestra

at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, 5/11/2006

Thanks to an online 75th anniversary promotion, Cameron and I enjoyed a special treat: tickets to hear the NSO for only $19.30. We got to sit in "prime orchestra" seats, normally $65 each - way out of reach. Thanks NSO! Greg Sandow is right... offer cheaper tickets, program some interesting music, and young people (like us) will be delighted to hear orchestra concerts.
Stravinsky + Bartok + $20 = sign me up.

There's a review in today's Washington Post. One comment about the ticket price promotion: just because we're "young" and not subscribers, please don't assume that we don't know anything about classical music. That wasn't an issue with the concert at all... but the tone of the review made me nervous.

So about the music: two words - hell yes. Stravinsky's "Symphonies of Wind Instruments" is a treat to hear live, I've only heard recordings. Contrary to Post critic Ginsberg, this piece never occurred to me as an "academic study" (although I did study it in grad. school) - I felt like it came off exactly as promised in the program notes: a series of "short litanies." The winds and brass instruments all sounded warm and gorgeous. Even the bassoons.

The Mendelssohn Octet in E-Flat, Op. 20 was performed by the entire string section and sounded great. Now I'm curious to hear Leonard Bernstein's string orchestra treatment of Beethoven's C-Sharp quartet, Op. 131 -- I know he recorded it, but I haven't actually heard it yet. I was always suspicious of performing chamber pieces with a zillion players doubling each part -- but this totally won me over. Any "infelicities of ensemble" noted by Mr. Ginsberg went totally unnoticed by me. I was quite mesmerized with their ability to maintain the clarity of the chamber piece, and deliver the added lushness of a full string orchestra. Delicious.

I had mixed feelings about the Chavez "Toccata for Percussion Instruments." Slatkin introduced the piece by calling it the second important percussion piece in the repertoire after Varese's "Ionisations." I'm not so sure about that, but who am I to argue with the Maestro. I'm spoiled, I guess. Hearing the So Percussion Ensemble playing music by John Luther Adams at last year's Otherminds festival made this piece so very tame in comparison. And maybe hearing the automated "Ballet Mechanique" at the National Gallery last weekend didn't help either?

The program ended with Bartok's "Suite from the Miraculous Mandarin" which just plain rocked. I think Bartok is to classical music as Caspar Brotzmann is to rock music. His work is rigorous, and quite satisfying intellectually, but as you're listening it doesn't hit you in the cerebellum, it punches you in the gut and leaves you totally breathless. This was an especially nice bit of programming by Slatkin and Co. - after hearing the sections of the orchestra on display, the Bartok made for an amazing showpiece - that's not just a showpiece. Also a nice choice to do this one instead of his Concerto for Orchestra, which I think is a little less "accessible" (although still plenty accessible) - and also would have been too long to tack onto the end of this particular program.

So, wow. That was a real treat. I hope us "young people" will have more chances to hear the NSO before Slatkin retires.

Sarah Azzara

at the Black Cat, 5/4/2006

Sarah rocked the Black Cat - it was a low-key CD release party for their new album, "It Turns Us On." The new record is quite excellent. Hear some of it and buy it at sarahazzara.com.

The band is a trio now, since their lead guitarist left to go back to school to become a CPA. I'm all for accountants that rock, but I think I preferred the quartet lineup. Two guitars really helped keep the balance - this time the bass and drums seemed a little overpowering. But seriously, check out the record. It's a winner.

John Vanderslice

at Iota, 4/29/2006

I got behind and haven't posted about any shows for a while... I'm not going to take the time to go back and catch up... we'll just have to deal with the gap in coverage.

John Vanderslice and his fabulous band played to a packed house at Iota. Damn his band is good. He's a very engaging performer, clearly very comfortable on stage, and immediately likeable. He conducts the performance as though we're all longtime friends and actually pulls it off. Of course it helps that the music is solid - and beautifully performed. Did I mention that his band is awesome? They are.

They've been on the road for a while, and it shows (in a good way). Everything sounded tight, but there was still enough room for all of the players to mix up some details and keep things fresh. At one point, Vanderslice stopped the show to listen to a change the keyboard player made to a delay setting, that changed the rhythm of a small accompaniment figure - this was followed by a demonstration so we all knew what he was talking about, and the drummer reluctantly gave a quick lesson in hemiola (and the drummer added a little triplet lick at the end of the following song to put it in context).

Basically, every song sounded lovely. They played for a good long while, and still didn't have time for a few favorites (no "dear sara shu" or "bill gates must die" or "speedlab" for example) but they delivered many of my personal favorites (i.e. "me and my 424," "angela," "time travel is lonely" and many others).

I splurged and bought a vinyl copy of his latest album, Pixel Revolt. It's pressed on two 180 gram discs that run at 45rpm -- and the sound quality is really spectacular (to be expected from an artist who's known as much for being a studio dork as he is a songwriter and performer). So much better than hearing the album as mp3's. But if you want to hear some mp3's, he's got loads of them on his site, including a few tracks from Pixel Revolt. Start here, but it's worth browsing the site for some older stuff too. (and I mean "studio dork" in the most respectful and affectionate way)

Page France opened. Stupid Pitchfork retains the well-deserved "stupid" prefix with this review. (although they did get a high score) I'm not sure why the review is so caught up in their music being "Christian." Certainly most of the songs deal with themes such as faith and love, served up with generous helpings of biblical imagery - but does that mean someone like Leonard Cohen was writing Christian music?